The Bricha was an underground movement that took shape after the liberation. By its means, some 250,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were moved from Eastern Europe to Western Europe in 1944–1948 to reestablish their lives away from the continent. Many of the escapees aspired to reach Eretz Israel. The Bricha began to organize in the winter of 1944 at the initiative of several dozen former partisans and members of the resistance, all affiliated with Zionist youth movements; it would become the largest organized illegal migration movement in the twentieth century. Within a year or so, these few dozen founders became the leaders of masses of survivors who placed their fate in their hands. The activists guided the escapees, equipped them with forged documents, set up transit stations, hired guides, provided basic foodstuffs, and adjusted their operating methods to the changing realities in the months following the end of the war. About a year after it went into action, the Bricha was joined by Jewish Brigade soldiers and, in late 1945, by the first three emissaries from Eretz Israel. Until then, it was the Holocaust survivors themselves who initiated, organized, and led the masses of survivors out of Europe to start their lives over.

The Bricha was a key player in the struggle for the establishment of a Jewish state in 1945–1948; it dramatically emphasized the demand to open the gates of Eretz Israel to the survivors of the Holocaust.